Marsh-loving Soras summer over at area waters

While watching for Virginia rails along the bank of a canal at Market Lake, I closed the truck door and a bird responded with a loud cackling, whinny retort. The sound started in a high rapid pitch and declined in both tempo and pitch. I had heard the same sound several times before, while visiting a nephew in St. Anthony when I also closed a car door near his pond.

I decided to wait a few minutes at the Market Lake site to see if the bird would show itself and it did. A yellow “candy-corn” shaped bill appeared from behind a cattail followed by a small head as the bird appear very shy and cautious and disappeared back in the thick vegetation when a truck drove by. The head had a black mask covering its face with a gray body and a brown molted back. It was a Sora which is a cousin to the Virginia rails of the marsh loving Rallidae family.

It finally worked its way to the edge of the thick cattails eating seeds along with aquatic insects and snails. I stayed there long enough to watch it fly across to the other bank of the canal and swim back again. It appeared to be an adult as juveniles do not have a black face mask.

They are not very fast in swimming and flying and they appear to be not very good at either, but each spring they migrate from Mexico, Central America or northern South America to Idaho. Then in the fall they head south again. At 35 mph, it would take a long time, but they usually wait for a cold front and the wind that accompanies it, which will allow them to travel up to 75 mph. They also takeoff about an hour after dark and fly all night and then find a place to rest and fill their gas tank for a few days before moving on.

Soras do not have webs on their feet as their feet are not made for swimming, but they have very long toes and large feet, designed to allow them to walk on floating vegetation. They can run extremely fast across the vegetation when startled.

They live a very secretive life in the cattail and bulrush thickets and are rarely seen, but if you hear one or see one of their cousins, the Virginia rail, they are close by. Patiently waiting for an hour or two, will often give you a chance to watch them. Or if you hear them consistently in the same area during the summer months, they are probably nesting in that area and a long wait may produce a sighting.

Building their nests are a joint effort between a pair with the male gathering the nesting material while the female weaves the nest. The nest is about six inches across usually on a floating mat of cattails or bulrushes over deep enough water that a Black-crowned night heron or an American bittern cannot wade out to it. The female may lay up to 12 eggs by double layering them with both Mom and Dad incubating them.